[olavk]

Are you suggesting the Soviet Union founded covert propaganda to convince the west that exoplanets couldn't exist? Do you have any more information about this? Because on the face of it it sound like the craziest conspiracy theory I've ever heard.

[Joeboy]

To be fair I read it as meaning we would be incapable of discovering them, rather than that they didn't exist. But yes, taken as a whole the post is rather eccentric.

[mikeash]

I wasn't around at the time, but from the science fiction of the era, it looks like nobody really thought about how to detect exoplanets from Earth, because everyone assumed the curve of technological progress in propulsion would keep going and you'd just send scout ships to other stars to survey them up close.

[Retra]

To be fair, nuclear technology was still new and fresh.